The Land of Aliens
dir. OLGA CHERNYKH
DUTCH PREMIERE
A short sci-fi drama about an enemy invasion of a peaceful land.
An amateur astronomer experiences the last peaceful day on his land before the invasion of “aliens”. He has to choose: to stay in his place, surrounded by invaders, or to leave all he has and fly away into the unknown. The story is told in a fairy-tale manner, but the constructed world accurately recalls today’s world.
SHOWTIMES | Special Feature: New Talents Competition 2 with Falling, Mammoth, The Most Beautiful Corner in the World & Tiny Summer Trilogy
– Special Guests: directors Dordije Petrovic and Anna Gyimesi
Saturday, 25 November – 16:00
Sunday, 26 November – 10:30
THE LAND OF ALIENS | 2023 | 19 min| Ukraine
PRODUCTION | Anzhela Sokol, Iryna Nikonchuk |
CAST | Yurii Kulinich, Alisa Kliushkina, Ihor Shcherbak, Maksym Burlaka |
SCREENPLAY | Maryna Brodovska |
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Yevhen Sakhno |
EDITING | Hanna Perepelitsa |
LANGUAGE | Ukrainian |
SUBTITLES | English |
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
This project was written as a personal reflection on the conflict that was going on in the Eastern part of Ukraine, where I’m originally from. War and “aliens” came to my city – Donetsk and stayed for 8 years. Now after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Donbas has become the hottest spot in the war and probably the bloodiest place in the whole world. My family had to move in 2015 and leave our home and our lives. In 2022 we were forced to flee again. So as a director of the film, I deeply understand the feelings of the main character. We (me and Maryna – the scriptwriter of the film) had an intention to show such experience and talk about the problem of leaving home in a fairytale way, creating a world of non-existing states and languages, using “aliens” as a metaphor for all the invaders.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Olga was born in Donetsk, Ukraine in 1990. In 2017, she graduated with an MA from the Cinematography department of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi University and worked as a director of photography on various Ukrainian and international fiction and documentary projects. She received a postgraduate diploma in “Documentary Filmmaking” and is an alumni of a Sergey Bukovsky film course. She has taken part in several international workshops and residency programs such as IDFA Academy, the “Aristoteles Workshop” in Romania, “Cinemaambulente” in Italy, “Eurasiadoc” in Kyiv and B2B Docs. She was awarded a Special prize for her short video “Express Your Taste” in the International “Papaya Young Directors” competition in Poland; and received a cinematography award for the same video at the “Kinooko” festival in Kyiv.